Lo. I return. More odd than ever.
Although, to be extremely honest, my return is a brief one. What you’ve been reading for the past month or so, the vast majority of it, was written weeks and weeks in advance so that I would have time to focus exclusively on my family for a while when the birth of my third child, and first son, came about. Well, no pictures, but he’s delightful, and healthy, and has a very strong set of lungs on him—which in many ways makes him just a smaller, less mobile edition of his sisters, actually.
I love him dearly. All of them, of course, but he’s the newest deep love of my heart.
Anyway, combine life-changing family events with a significant uptick in busyness at work and I’ve hardly had the time to work on Halfwhisker, let along any secondary or tertiary projects. Thus I find it necessary—for a time—to step away from the blog once again. Perhaps every once in a while strong inspiration, or frustration, will bring me back for the odd post or two, but after this I really need to put all of my dwindling writing time into finishing Halfwhisker… and then starting the next project.
Thanks for being here. I hope this is a very short farewell.
Writing and Publishing
Looking Back
My goal for June/July was to finish this draft of Halfwhisker before the baby came, and then in what limited free time I had review it and revise it. That is not what happened. Instead, I think I have a minimum of ten thousand words before I finish this draft, and I wrote maybe one or two thousand words, total, last week.
Looking Forward
Well, those are rookie numbers. I need to up those numbers. I need to finish this draft of Halfwhisker. I need to apply what revisions I see necessary. I need to break out the manuscript as it exists into chapters. I need to write quotes to start each chapter. I need to write interludes to go between the six parts of this book. And then I need to send Halfwhisker off to the editor.
And that’s probably the point where I’ll be able to start breathing again and look at other projects, this blog included. However long it takes. (I’m praying for no more than two months. If I’m not completely finished with Halfwhisker by the end of this year, I’m going to be disappointed.)
The Blog
Since this is the last you’ll see of the blog for a while, why not check out whatever you missed in July?
- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: Alternate magical history. Regency/Napoleonic era. A good sense of British humor. An epic scope. Two magicians who hate to love each other. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is not always an easy read, but it is always a delightful one.
- The Amazing Digital Circus: The controversial series concluded, so I finally felt like talking over everything as a whole. It’s flawed, absolutely, but it also has a lot of elements that make it excellent—and many more than make it a bit of a rorschach test. Put all of these things together, and it’s probably no surprise that The Amazing Digital Circus had a few days of being at the center of conversation and, based on said conversations, is either the best or worst indie project to hit the mainstream in quite some time.
- American Paladin: Larry Correia continues his excellent and reliable work in a story that, to me, feels like an evolution and refinement of Monster Hunter International.
My Reading List
An anthology of Conan the Barbarian stories—the originals, as I understand it, written by Robert E Howard.
Conan’s stories are nothing like I imagined they would be. Not even remotely. Here’s the biggest thing that struck me as most bizarre: Conan is rarely the viewpoint in his own stories.
The first Conan story is told from the viewpoint of the damsel in distress that Conan rescues. Several, in fact, principally have female, third-person limited viewpoints. The most recent one I read was from the perspective of a hunter that Conan briefly takes under his wing, a man woefully unprepared to keep up with the Cimmerian, but who makes a valiant effort.
That’s not to say that Conan is never given a viewpoint, of course—it happens at least once or twice per story—but for a character with a reputation and legacy as rich and long as Conan’s, I was still surprised. Most of my experiences with the man are through others interacting with him, rather than through his direct interaction with his world. It’s a bold move, Mr. Howard, but I’m growing to like it.
Conan is, of course, critically important in every story he is in, and to average men he often seems a force of nature—but he still gets injured and beaten far more than I would have expected, making his victories feel earned, and making him feel more human than I would have imagined based on reputation alone. Is he still, in many ways, an idealization of masculinity, particularly the more savage, barely timed—yes, barbaric—side? Yes. Yet, these stories still do a good job at leaving me with the belief that it’s possible for a Conan to exist in the real world.
There are a few things in these stories that clearly signpost Conan as being from an earlier era, so readers unable to allow historical perspectives to be judged from historical contexts might struggle with some of the vocabulary and depictions in a Conan story. Such persons are missing out. These stories still hold up, by and large.
Speaking of how different the past is from the present, I’m rather surprised—and disappointed—by how many words I had to look up. I had thought myself well-read, but perhaps I am not as well-read as the early-twentieth-century target audience of the pulp fiction magazines that spawned Conan and others, being generally working- and lower-class men of an expected reading level of 6th- to 8th grade. (Meanwhile, in our enlightened, modern era, illiteracy in first-world nations is a growing issue. Perhaps the past is better, despite worse plumbing and electricity.)
Anyway—I’m not finished yet, but I recommend Conan so far. And after that? Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser short stories have my attention, but I’ve also got a back catalogue of ebooks just waiting to be cracked open—we’ll see what catches my attention.
Finally—What Else do I Recommend This Month?
This is a hilarious party game to play with family and friends—in many ways it has very strong MarioKart energy, despite being a golf game. Yes, it requires each person to have their own computer or game console to play, but the game itself is under $10, making it feel practically like a steal when you see how much fun you’ll get out of it.
And, with built-in voice chat, I’ve found this game to be a pretty ideal way to connect with distant family and friends, to just to spend time with my loved ones even on nights when I can’t leave the house because doing so would mean abandoning my sleeping children.
Boo Ludlow 
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